 "Roger Federer, tennis")
Summer is coming, the Australian summer, and Roger Federer is preparing to return to competitive tennis in January at the Hopman Cup in Perth after a six-month injury break, the first such extended break of his career.
Federer, the 17-time Grand Slam singles champion who is now 35, spoke with The New York Times on Friday from his training base in Dubai about the coming season. Here are some excerpts from the interview, which has been edited and condensed.
On his progress after ending his 2016 season in July because of left knee problems:
The last five, six months have been interesting in the sense that I did have days where I hoped that progress would be faster and then had another day where I would wake up, and I felt there was progress. So I went through my ups and downs, but I mean if I had to compare it, it was 90% up and 10% down. When I was down, it didn’t last long.
On how hard it was to watch tennis from afar:
I must say I was surprised how easy it was for me all the way up until Shanghai [in October], and then when I started to feel better, when I was able to play points again, I started to miss the tournaments like Shanghai, Basel and the World Tour Finals. All of a sudden, I felt like in some crazy way I could be playing with these guys again. Obviously, I should not, because I would get injured again, maybe, but that’s when I started to miss it.
Before that, I felt I was so far off even being in the draw that I actually didn’t miss it. The Rio Olympics — I’ve never been to Rio, so I don’t really know what I missed. The US Open, I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t have been able to play best-of-five sets. There was no point dwelling over it, and so it was really only at the end of the season.
I did enjoy watching Andy (Murray) and Novak (Djokovic) and the race for world No. 1. I thought it was really exciting, and I checked in on some of the matches in the World Tour Finals. I saw the end of the finals. I saw the end of Murray against (Milos) Raonic (in the semifinals) as well, and I thought it was really exciting. And I think it was great for tennis that we had a finish like that this year.
I was following the tour more closely than I ever thought I would. I thought I would switch off and not be into it, but I was surprised how many times I caught myself checking live scores.
On what he is looking forward to in returning to the game:
Playing for big crowds against the best players in important matches is something I’m looking forward to. Also just the process, and I think seeing how I’m going to cope with the six-month layoff, basically.
I don’t want to say the year didn’t exist. It was maybe the most memorable year of my life. I feel like I’m going to remember every day of what I went through this year, because it was kind of so difficult.
In a way, I’m really positive about how I’m feeling right now, and practice is going well, but then again expectations are low because
I don’t have the matches yet, and it’s going to be best-of-five from the get-go at the Australian Open. I’m happy I’ve got the Hopman Cup, and I’ve got my three matches there to ease my way in.
I think the most exciting period for me is going to be the Australian Open. I don’t know what to expect from myself. The crowds won’t know what to expect, and my opponent has no clue what to expect. So I think that three-way thing is going to be quite exciting. How to handle that? And as I go along with it, how much can I play? Or how little can I play? But when I do play, I want to be at my best and for that I need to train hard, but also be very clever and smart. So we’ll see.
©2016 The New York Times
